The video consultation will be a reality throughout the Madrid health network in December this year, both in health centers and hospitals | The Platform of Patient Organizations (POP) proposes the regulation of a legal framework for telematic care or to provide the necessary infrastructure to ensure the protection of information
The video consultation will be a reality throughout the Madrid public health network in December of this year. The president of the community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, had already advanced it. This week -in the Debate on the State of the Region- she has once again defended the usefulness of this modality both in health centers and in hospital specialty consultations. From the Platform of Patient Organizations (POP), its president, Carina Escobar, applauds a system that several centers in the region already have. But, she warns The Newspaper of Spain, the design must take into account users and professionals. And, of course, he adds, it must be “equipped and adapted” so that it does not “more barriers for those patients.”
At the beginning of this year, President Ayuso presented the video consultation system through the Virtual Health Cardwhich began to be implemented in the hospitals of El Escorial and Henares, in Coslada, with the idea of being available throughout the network before the end of this 2022, offering all the guarantees of data protection, they specify from the Community, because this type of virtual consultation cannot be recorded.
Madrid defends that the new resource offers the same quality of a face-to-face consultation
Madrid defends that the new resource offers the same quality of a face-to-face consultation with the advantage that patients they don’t have to move if they don’t need it. It does so in a context in which unions and the opposition criticize that the waiting lists in public health have skyrocketed. President Ayuso herself announced in that Debate on the State of the Region that the waiting list plan for the 2022-2024 period will reduce the maximum service times by half, according to clinical priority.
As a novelty, the community stands out, together with the video consultations, the category of delegated virtual health card. In other words, family members or persons authorized to manage the procedures of minors under 16 years of age and people with dependency will be able to access this model through electronic devices. Advances that, they assure, lead the region to what they call “liquid health”.
A change of model
From entities such as the POP, which brings together patient organizations at the state level, they admit that the health crisis caused by the coronavirus has driven “the urgent need to redefine the model care and managing change”. For this reason, they underline the importance of improving the management of chronic diseases “by innovating in care processes, care and of course in the development of technology thinking of people“.
Advancing in the doctor-patient relationship, they point out from this platform, means doing it through innovation and digitization that promote telecare. Of course, they emphasize, “preserving humanization and the specific needs of each person with some type of illness”. Technology, considers Carina Escobar, is “very necessary” both for the continuity of care and for the coordination between the different services.
The POP is committed to digitization based on criteria of quality, fairness, equality and that advocates reducing the digital divide
“It’s a great opportunity”, but, he adds, a participatory design is needed, which takes into account patients and health professionals, and of course equip it and adapt it so that “do not create more barriers for patients“. It emphasizes the need for this new form of relationship “be of quality”. Commitment to digitization based on criteria of “efficiency, innovation, fairness, equality and that advocates for reducing the digital divide in health”.
The president of the POP refers to the “telematic attention model person centered” published in October 2021 by the platform in which, among other aspects, the regulation of a legal framework for telematic care; establish criteria for the use of face-to-face consultation and consultation by video call; provide the necessary infrastructure to ensure the protection of information; promote shared consultation or streamline appointment scheduling.